


Amends

by igrockspock



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Forgiveness, Friendship, Gen, Season/Series 02, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-29 02:40:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6355612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/igrockspock/pseuds/igrockspock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Claire told Matt he shouldn’t put so much distance between himself and the people he’s trying to save.  She was right.  Matt tries to make amends with the people he hurt in season two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Amends

**Author's Note:**

> For this prompt at the Daredevil kink meme: After Elektra dies, a heartbroken Matt decides to make amends with the friends he has ignored for months.

**1\. Brett**

Juggling the cane and the fruit basket is harder than he thought it would be. He feels awkward and off-balance as he walks into the precinct -- but maybe that’s not the fruit basket’s fault. It’s _his_ fault, for needing to make so many apologies in the first place.

“Can I help you with that, man?” somebody says. Matt gets a whiff of aftershave and cigarette smoke. 

“No thanks,” he says. “I’m alright.” 

The fruit basket is his cross to bear. His stupid, awkward cross. Do people even _like_ fruit baskets? 

It doesn’t matter. Hallmark doesn’t make a card that says _sorry evil ninjas attacked you to get files about my secret identity._ Ridiculously expensive pears are all he has.

He taps softly on the door to Brett’s office. Brett’s footsteps are quick and light across the linoleum floor. He’s not hurting so much anymore.

The door swings open, and Matt hears a soft, surprised exhalation.

“What’s all this?” Brett asks. His hands are moving through the air, gesturing at something -- the fruit basket, Matt assumes.

_I’m glad you gave them the files, I’m glad you’re alive, I hope you don’t feel guilty about what you did._

“Overdue congratulations,” he says. “On your promotion, I mean.”

He hears Brett smile.

“Thanks, Murdock. Now get the hell out before the guys start thinking I’m friends with a defense attorney.”

**2\. Father Lantom**

Do you even have to apologize to a priest? Hearing confessions and giving advice is sort of their _job_.

On the other hand… _If you feel guilty, it’s because you haven’t done all you could._ Maybe, if you routinely ask your priest to bear the ethical dilemmas of a freelance vigilante, you owe him an apology.

_Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. I have taken advantage of your kindness._

No good. In the confession booth, a priest has no choice but to dole out absolution.

Instead Matt comes into the church at night, after he’s done fighting. He breathes in the silence, changes out of his armor in the confession booth. And then he cleans, wiping down forgotten corners, oiling the cracked wooden pews, scrubbing away at the stained glass windows until they shine -- or at least, he _hopes_ they shine. On his way out, he puts on a pot of coffee, the nice fair trade kind from Ethiopia that tastes like cinnamon and tangerines.

After mass, Father Lantom leans in close.

“Matthew, stop sneaking around my church in the middle of the night,” he says. “But keep making the coffee.” 

**3\. Claire**

“What do you need?” Claire asks when he knocks on her door.

It shouldn’t hurt, but it does. When did he become the kind of person who only visits when he needs something?

“Nothing,” he says hastily. “Can I come in?”

Claire doesn’t say anything, just sighs and opens the door wide. She doesn’t smell like antiseptic anymore.

“I have this friend,” he starts.

“Oh god,” Claire says.

“She works in HR at Beth Israel. She said they have openings in the ER.” He thinks about Union Square, the fresh-baked bread and the heirloom apples at the farmer’s market, summer concerts where you can spread out a blanket on the lawn. It’s not Hell’s Kitchen. Would she even be happy there?

“Jesus, Matt, give me her number.”

Most people think it’s impossible to hear relief. They’re wrong. Relief is the sound of every muscle in the body relaxing all at once. It’s breaths that are suddenly easy, a voice that’s suddenly light.

He passes her the business card he’s been keeping in his jacket pocket, and he does not admit that he’s kept it there for three days, waiting for the courage to knock on her door. Her fingertips are warm when she takes it from his hands.

“Matt?” she asks. “I don’t even know why I’m asking this, but are you alright?”

He is not alright. Elektra is dead and he spent the last few months alienating everyone he’s ever loved, but he’s not talking to Claire about that. He’s done bringing problems to her door.

“I owe you an apology,” he says.

“For?” she asks, her voice tinged with impatience. 

_Don’t lie._ He’s not sorry he brought her those poor, wasted children. They needed help, the kind of help he couldn’t provide. Claire had to be the one, because he knew for sure that she was good and he didn’t know that about anyone. Well, _almost_ anyone -- but he’s not thinking about Karen or Foggy, because he’s not sure he can get them back.

“I’m sorry you fell out the window,” he says. He doesn’t _mean_ for it to sound like a joke, but it sort of does, and Claire snorts.

“Anything else?”

“Your friend.” He should have been faster. He should have saved her.

“Not your fault,” Claire says. Her heart is steady. She’s not lying. “The zombie ninjas get the blame. Are zombie ninjas a thing now, by the way?”

“I really don’t know,” Matt says. He takes a deep breath. “I was a complete and total asshole.”

That seems much more important -- and true -- than ninjas who can rise from the dead. He’s not even sure asshole is a big enough word for how he’d behaved. “You were right about - about how I shouldn’t separate myself from the people I’m trying to protect. I shouldn’t have pushed you away.”

Claire is _very_ good at derisive snorts. Possibly the very best of anyone he knows.

“Is _any_ of that going to change?”

Thirty years of conditioning told him not to need people, not to let them in. It wasn’t just Stick. It was his dead father and his disappearing mother and Elektra who seduced him for a mission and died just when he thought they might actually have a chance. And Foggy, who learned the truth about him and slowly left. 

It would be so easy just to tell Claire what she wants to hear. _Yes, I promise, I’ll change._ But it would be pointless, because she always sees through his bullshit. He won’t stop pushing people away anytime soon. He’ll just feel really guilty about it.

“Well, next time you bring me coffee, I’ll drink it,” he says.

“Please. Next time, _you_ bring the coffee to _me_ ,” Claire says, and Matt hears the smile in her voice.

 _Next time,_ he thinks, and his heart feels light.

**4\. Karen**

“I’m Daredevil,” he says.

“That doesn’t excuse even _one_ thing,” she says. Her throat is tight; he smells salt in the air and guesses it’s tears. “Maybe you’re a hero, but you still lied. Over and over and over again.”

She walks out the door, and he lets her go.

He wants to write her a note every time he reads one of her stories, but his handwriting is shit -- always had been, even when he could see -- and typing doesn’t feel personal or sincere. Or maybe he’s just afraid she won’t write back.

He wants to call her, to beg her to sit down with him over coffee, curry, expensive wine, _anything_ she wants, anything at all. But she’ll say he’s apologizing so _he_ can feel better, and she’ll be right. 

He does not write and he does not call, but when he bumps into her at Starbuck’s, he doesn’t run away. He wonders if she knows that’s an apology.

“I liked your story,” he says. His throat is dry.

“Which one?” she asks, and he’s not sure if it’s a boast or a challenge or both. 

“The one about the missing athletic funds at PS10,” he says. “And the one about the separate entrances for the low-income tenants in luxury highrises, and the profile of the prosecutor who tried the police brutality case.”

He stops himself before he names them all, just in case it’s creepy.

“Thanks,” she says, and Matt can hear all her muscles tense. She swallows and takes a deep breath, like she’s about to say something else, but just then the barista calls her name.

“Well,” she says, “corruption at the comptroller’s office isn’t going to wait. Take care, Matt.”

She takes her coffee black now -- Matt can’t smell even the faintest whiff of sugar or cream -- but he can still smell the same shampoo in her hair. She’s gone before he gets a chance to say goodbye.

It takes him weeks to connect the dots between the comptroller, the yakuza, and the remnants of Nobu’s old real estate scheme. When he does, he saves it on a flash drive and brings it straight to Karen’s door. Well, okay, he brings it to her window at three o’clock on a Tuesday morning.

When he taps on the glass, her heartbeat spikes. He’d thought she might reach for a canister of mace -- please, please, please don’t spray him -- but instead he smells gunpowder and hears the safety click. All the old words tumble through his mind: _what are you doing, Karen? Be careful. Why do you need a gun?_ He bites his tongue and raises his hands slowly, holding up the flash drive. The window lock screeches, Karen’s muscles strain, and Matt lifts up the sash from the other side.

“Jesus, Matt, you scared the shit out of me,” she mutters, and he can’t bring himself to tell her not to use his name.

“Sorry,” he whispers. He hadn’t really thought this through, except that he was afraid if he knocked on her door, she’d close it in his face. 

She takes the flash drive from his outstretched hand. He listens to the silky slide of her hair against her nightgown, inhales the familiar scent of her shampoo. 

“I miss you,” he says.

She inhales, and he thinks for a moment she’s going to say it back. Then her pen clicks, and the pages of her notepad rustle in the breeze. “Tell me everything you know,” she says. 

**5\. Foggy**  
He does what he can for Foggy -- refers clients, slips useful files into his mailbox, listens carefully for any whiff that Jeri Hogarth is not a trustworthy employer. (She’s not. She can’t possibly be.)

_If you feel guilty, it’s because you haven’t done everything you could._

What more can he do? 

Well, there is one thing: he could actually _talk_ to Foggy. 

Foggy lives on the fifth floor of a walk-up. The sound of his cane tapping echoes in the narrow staircase, though he doesn’t really need it - he’d memorized all the chips and worn places in the stairs long ago. 

“Haven’t seen you in a long time,” a voice says from the third floor landing. Mrs. Sanchez, Matt remembers. Foggy had patched the hole in her wall when the landlord didn’t bother.

Matt’s surprised Foggy still lives here. With his new job, he could have bought his way out of the lease easily enough. _Are you insane, Matt? Who gives up a rent-controlled apartment in New York?_ Not that Foggy had actually _said_ that to him, but Matt can imagine the conversation easily enough. He can’t imagine what he’ll say when he gets to Foggy’s door.

The good news is that Foggy answers when he knocks. The bad news is that Foggy thought he was the pizza delivery guy.

“What are you doing here?”

Not a question Foggy would have ever needed to ask before. 

Foggy smells different now -- like hair gel and starch and shoes made from real Italian leather.

“You look different,” Matt says. 

Foggy snorts softly but doesn’t ask how Matt knows. “Yeah, well, gotta look the part.”

“Do you like it?” Matt asks. He means the job, obviously, but he means more than that too -- the clothes, the expense accounts, the sleek black cars that come to ferry partners to the office every morning. Matt had always hated those trappings of wealth, and he thought Foggy had too.

“Did you really come here to chat about my job?” Foggy asks. His voice is flat.

“I didn’t lie to you,” Matt says. It’s a _terrible_ opening. He should have planned this better -- but if he’d thought about it, he wouldn’t have come.

Foggy’s heartbeat spikes. He doesn’t say anything, just starts to close the door. Matt puts up a hand to catch it.

“I didn’t lie about needing you,” he says quickly. 

The door stops. Foggy swallows, and his heartbeat slows -- not a lot. Just enough to make Matt believe he has a chance if he keeps talking. He takes off his glasses. No more hiding.

“I let you believe I needed help because I can’t see. It was easier than asking for what I really needed.”

“Which is what exactly?” It’s not anger in Foggy’s voice. It’s disgust. It makes Matt’s stomach churn.

“Not to be alone. I’ll go away and never come back if that’s what you want, but I wanted you to know that I always needed you. I still _need_ you.” Maybe it’s not right to make Foggy tell him to go -- but then, he’d been the one who walked away last time. Letting Foggy choose is the best apology he knows.

The soles of Foggy’s expensive leather shoes slide across the worn floorboards. The door creaks as he opens it wider.

“I don’t want that,” Foggy says. “Stay.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! I'm surprised to even have to leave this note, but here goes... Please stop leaving character bashing comments about Matt, Foggy, Karen, or anyone else. I am happy to have discussion about the behavior and decisions of each of the characters; they are complicated, interesting people, and I love that canon leaves us room to debate about them. Outright hatred is not constructive discussion, and those types of comments will be deleted.


End file.
